Waterfox

Waterfox provides you with a high-performance 64-Bit version of Mozilla Firefox.

The Firefox source code was taken and compiled to run specifically for 64-Bit Windows computers. It is not a flashy or complex browser by any stretch but it will import all of your Firefox settings and incorporate them making it very familiar to use.

Waterfox is compiled with many optimizations so that it will perform faster and more efficiently than simply redistributing Firefox as a 64-Bit program.

Come FF 57 all extensions will be using webextensions and legacy extensions will cease. Will these legacy extensions still exist in Mozilla web store and be updated and for how long?

I understand WF will still support such legacy extensions. But where to get new updates once they don't exist in Mozilla web store? Will WF have its web store to host these legacy extensions with updates like Pale Moon?

This version lands some very important changes that pave the way to keeping add-on support in Waterfox.
Waterfox now uses its own separate profile directory and migrates all your existing data to it. In the coming weeks the website will get an infrastructure update to pave the way for an add-on store.

Waterfox now uses its own profile directory (as you may have been prompted when updating).

Location on macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Waterfox

Location on Linux: ~/.waterfox/

Location on Windows: %APPDATA%\Waterfox

Backed out Bug 1351490 to keep NPAPI support.

Added Yahoo! partner URL.

Good news for users of legacy-addons. Waterfox will get its own add-on store:

https://www.ghacks.net/2017/08/16/waterfox-news-android-app-legacy-addons/Waterfox 55 news: Android app, continued legacy add-on support
[...] Mozilla plans to throw legacy support over board in Firefox 57, and has started to remove bits of code already from current versions of Firefox.
Waterfox's developer plans to keep these code bits in the browser to guarantee continued support for legacy add-ons. Additionally, Waterfox's website will be updated and an add-on store of its own will be launched.
This is an important step, as Mozilla blocks legacy add-on uploads to the official Firefox AMO website. Without support for an independent store, new legacy add-ons can not be distributed easily.

Quite frankly, I fail to understand why someone would opt for a browser which is a one-man project. Even if 99% of its code is identical with the Firefox code, the 1% is critical because it's code which could possibly undermine the new FF security architecture (and webextensions are an important part of it). No, thanks - if it comes to the browser I would never rely on a hobby project.

Quite frankly, I fail to understand why someone would opt for a browser which is a one-man project.

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Perhaps they believe that one guy is more trustworthy than the people at Mozilla and without even knowing who he is I would bet my money on him too, because I have already evaluated the trustworthiness of the people at Mozilla.

Perhaps they believe that one guy is more trustworthy than the people at Mozilla and without even knowing who he is I would bet my money on him too, because I have already evaluated the trustworthiness of the people at Mozilla.

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So be it You're apparently a risk lover: As mentioned elsewhere, Moonchild wrote that Palemoon's codebase consists of 15 million lines. Waterfox is certainly in the same ballpark. Properly maintaining only 1%, i.e. 150,000 code lines is a big task, indeed. Good luck!

One concern i have with Waterfox been a recommendation is there questionable change to yahoo search, the search suggestions come from yahoo via https://search.yahoo.com/sugg/ff using Firefox partner tags but the actual search is now performed through https://api.couponroller.com/v1/hostedsearch which has questionable history.

So be it You're apparently a risk lover: As mentioned elsewhere, Moonchild wrote that Palemoon's codebase consists of 15 million lines. Waterfox is certainly in the same ballpark. Properly maintaining only 1%, i.e. 150,000 code lines is a big task, indeed. Good luck!

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Don't be silly now, you don't have to maintain the entire project just because you fork a modified version. As a developer you only need to be concerned with the code directories related to your modifications.

Don't be silly now, you don't have to maintain the entire project just because you fork a modified version. As a developer you only need to be concerned with the code directories related to your modifications.

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You call me silly but are unable to read. I wrote about maintaining 1% of the code base.

There will be some teething issues with various setting as the change to prepare for continued XUL/XPCOM add-on support, so some add-ons may get disabled and settings changed. With some upcoming updates this should be fixed.

Just playing with Waterfox portable for the first time (now that it doesn't share a profile with Firefox).

Question: Can I now just copy a profile from C:\Users\Paul\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles to a.C:\Users\Paul\AppData\Roaming\Waterfox\ or b.C:\Users\Paul\AppData\Roaming\Waterfox\Profiles (which one, a. or b.?) ... will that work?